


Peace with the Past

by ponderinfrustration



Series: Late Nights in Baker Street [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Gen, M/M, Old grief renewed, graveyard, making peace at last
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 00:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1408969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first night that Sherlock goes out after the change, he pays a visit to the man that started it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peace with the Past

Sherlock's mind filters back ten years, to a cold, dark night in the streets of London. The glint of the knife blade beneath the street lamp, the blood, sticky and red. (It's not phantom blood that he feels on his hands anymore, but at least now it's given freely, it has a purpose for having been lost.) Tonight, the star light casts a silver glow on everything in the graveyard, a ghostly light hiding all kinds of demons. (Sherlock doesn't mind, he is, after all, one of them now.) John is out there somewhere, silently waiting for him, and Sherlock smiles to himself despite the night that’s in it.

It’s the first time Sherlock’s seen the grave in darkness, and the first time he’s been out since the change. It seems only right to visit the man who started it all. The gold writing spelling Siger Holmes’ name (it would have been anathema to use silver) almost glows in the darkness. Sherlock doesn’t know what to say. It seems an illogical exercise – has always seemed that way – to speak to a grave as if speaking to a person, but Sherlock feels like saying something anyway. Feels that now – at the beginning of something so foreign and alien – that perhaps it is time to change some things.

He sighs, and wraps the Belstaff tighter around his torso (it is a force of habit, now. His vampire body doesn’t feel cold.), before lowering himself to the ground, leaning back against the dark marble.

“You saved my life that night,” he says softly, “and I’ve never been able to understand what made you stop. A baby crying – it’s not exactly unusual. But you stopped and you made me part of the family, and I’ve never understood why. But I’ve always been grateful. I just wish that I’d said it more often. Then there was that other night, and you knew the blade was made of silver but you still pushed me out of the way, you still protected me even though it was deadly to you. And I wish that I could thank you for that too, but this is the best that I can do. 

“I’m sorry that I disappointed you. I’m sorry that I didn’t let myself feel, and that I took to drugs and overdosed. I’m sorry that I haven’t been as a good of a man as you wanted me to be. But things are different now. I think, I think my death was good for me, but it might be too soon to tell. And I’ve got John now. You’d like him.”

He sighs, and plays with the flowers that his mother clearly left earlier in the day, feeling drained and awkward after expressing so much emotion, but oddly relieved too. A momentous weight has been lifted from his chest, one he’s forgotten he’s ever had, it being so intrinsic to him for so long. That’s all over now though, long behind him, part of his human life.

Knowing that it won’t be long until dawn, he stands and lets his fingers hover over the marble. “I have to go, or John will worry.” Turning away, he looks up at the multitudinous stars   
filling the sky, remembering his parents telling him as a child that’s where the dead go when they leave this world. “I miss you, Dad.”

Burying his hands in his coat pockets, he walks away without looking back. John is waiting for him at the gates, and they have an undead life to live.


End file.
